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Background: From whichever culture a family belongs to, scientific evidence shows the role of family functioning and relationships on the child's health and well-being. A family can either be a source of an issue or a resource for preventing the problem, especially in a diverse country like India. The foremost step to understanding these aspects is to develop an awareness of the transitional nature of family functioning in the new millennium. Objectives: The study proposes to explore the dynamics of family functioning from the conceptualization of parents of Generation Z and intents to analyze the subsequent outcomes on the health of children and adolescents, presenting it as qualitative network construction. Methods: Rich descriptive data was collected from 60 parents by a semi-structured interview schedule consisting of 4 predecided questions. The analyses were done by ATLAS.ti7 version 7.5.16, Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS). Results: As an upshot, 2 structural networks were constructed. One network depicts the 3 aspects of family functioning, cohesion, flexibility, and communication, studied according to Indian families of the new millennium. The psychological, socioemotional, and physical impact of the functioning accumulated in the second network. The study revealed the underlying aspects, the level, and quality of all the 3 dimensions and the thought-provoking aftermath for Generation Z. Conclusion: The study offers intriguing information about the Indian family functioning of the new millennium and its descriptive association with the health of children and adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on child psychological functioning has emphasized the role of maternal psychopathology. In the literature on paternal psychopathology's effect on children, they are studied independently of mothers. The interaction between paternal and maternal psychopathology likely affects the child. The present study utilizes novel longitudinal techniques to assess how each parent influences one another, how parents influence the child, and how the child's internalizing and externalizing problems influence the parents. This modeling allows for exploration of the child's trajectory in the context of the family dynamics. By emphasizing the processes between each member of the family, the role one plays in the functioning is emphasized. Models focused on maternal anxiety, paternal anxiety and depression, and child internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Paternal psychopathology impacts maternal anxiety and child problem behavior (internalizing and externalizing) consistently, with the child and father reciprocally influencing one another. The results indicate that parental psychological distress differentially influences the child's internalizing/externalizing behavior depending on the interaction between maternal and psychological distress. Intervention that emphasizes the family system or shifts the focus to overall reduction of psychological distress in the family unit is implicated from these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing conflicts and aggressive behaviors between siblings is challenging for many parents, and parental responses to sibling conflict has been shown to influence the quality of children's sibling interactions. Building on previous work on parental involvement in sibling conflict, the aim of this study was to investigate the mediating role of sibling bullying perpetration and victimization during childhood and adolescence in the relationship between parental intervention styles and conflicts in young adults' sibling relationships. A sample of 302 individuals aged 17–33 years participated in the study. Results of structural equation modeling confirmed the proposed mediation model of young adults' sibling conflicts. More precisely, parental control and parental noninvolvement were positively associated with experiences of sibling bullying perpetration and victimization, whereas parental coaching was associated with lower reports of sibling victimization. Involvement in sibling bullying during childhood and adolescence was, for its part, associated with sibling conflicts in young adulthood. Results of the current study confirmed that parenting intervention styles can influence children's involvement in sibling bullying, which in turn, can predict conflicts in adult sibling relationships. In line with the family system theory, these results underline that parents can inadvertently play a role in the development of dysfunctional sibling relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé Définie comme la non-concordance entre la prescription médicale et sa mise en application, l’observance est un enjeu majeur de santé pour le pédiatre et l’équipe soignante prenant en charge l’enfant et l’adolescent porteurs d’une maladie chronique. Au temps de l’enfance, l’alliance avec les parents repose sur un accompagnement attentif et vigilant. L’adolescence est une période sensible, souvent problématique où le pédiatre et l’équipe soignante doivent mobiliser leur capacité d’écoute, d’empathie, pour appréhender toutes les dimensions de la non-observance : révolte, appropriation de la maladie, dépression… non seulement en direction de l’adolescent, mais vers les parents. L’éducation thérapeutique de l’enfant et de l’adolescent est ainsi essentielle pour mener l’adolescent à l’autonomie et préparer la transition vers la médecine adulte. The extend to which a patient's behaviour, in terms of taking medication, coincide with medical prescription define the adherence. Adherence is a major challenge for the paediatrician and medical staff taking care of chronic conditions patients. During childhood greater attention should be given to alliance with parents. During adolescence, various reasons for poor adherence should be analysed to be understood: rebellion, consciousness of disease, depression… Parents must be included in the analysis because they are very concerned by the illness experience of their child from the announcement until the autonomy. Patient education program should be based on an appraisal of each adolescent's need and must lead to autonomy and prepare to adult transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue presents a collection of reports that highlight recent advances in methods and measurement and also shed light on the complexity of family psychology. The importance of theory in guiding solid family science is evident throughout these reports. The reports include guides for researchers who incorporate direct observation into their research protocols and the ever-expanding field of tele-health interventions. Advanced analytic approaches are offered in the areas of grid sequence analysis, latent fixed-effects models, and the Factors of Curves Model (FOCUS). These sophisticated analytic approaches may be applied to advance systemic thinking in family psychology. The last set of articles illustrate how complex and innovative methodologies are applied to address important societal issues. Work experiences and marital relationships in African American couples address the importance of spillover effects in contemporary families. The creation of biobehavioral plasticity index has the potential to inform gene x environment contributions to family functioning. Finally, the unique methodological issues that are particularly germane to the diverse nature of stepfamilies and nonresident fathers are addressed. We hope that readers of this special issue will return to these reports as resources and examples of theory-driven methods and measurements. (PsycINFO Database Record [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge about family relationships was once based primarily on reports provided by mothers. Recognition of discrepancies in the reports of different family members motivated attempts at more objective descriptions of the family system, including latent variable models that took advantage of multiple family informants to create consensus-based descriptions of the family. This study takes a new look at the maternal perspectives on the family system, treating them as important in their own right. Two hundred and eight mothers provided ratings on positivity in each of the family relationships in their two-parent two-child families. Analysis of these data using the family version of the social relations model (SRM) offered a unique window into "mother's family psychology." The round-robin SRM family assessment was applied to data provided by two mothers to explore how individual perspectives on the family might inform therapist-client discussions within the context of individual therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The socio-psychological reality, in which the modern family functions, requires many interdisciplinary studies undertaken for diagnostic as well as corrective and therapeutic (aiding) purposes. This paper attempts to present, from the psychological perspective, the issue of dysfunction in terms of general developmental and educational problems that parents face in the upbringing process. In psychology, family is treated as the child's socio-educational primary and natural environment, in which he can gather his first life experiences. These are of diverse character and may be drawn from a variety of actions: supportive and motivating activities, passive participation in the upbringing process or negative, inhibiting interactions. A wide spectrum of variables modifying the developmental and educational process includes the child's age, level of psychic development but also broadly understood parental educational competencies shaped in objectively difficult reality and other factors modifying the family developmental and educational activities. In family educational interactions, as far as their form, content and educational methods are concerned, we should take into account current civilization-related determinants, understood as a number of social environment variables (school, peer groups, youth organizations, social movements) which influence the development of the child in a planned systematic and intended way. Susceptibility of young people to these influences gradually becomes more open and natural, often replacing the direct educational influence of the family. This paper focuses mainly on various manifestations of social life that pathologize modern developmental and educational interactions within the family, both of internal and external character. Current trends in psychoprophylaxis should also take into account interactions that would make the parents aware of numerous external threats to the modern family, indicate preventive methods, grouped in a system of actions particularly important for correct functioning of the family as well as aim at development or consolidation of parental competencies, developmental abilities, self-awareness and educational self-control. Multispecialty and multidirectional assistance to the family - the child's developmental and educational environment - in self-diagnosis of its functioning should be a priority for many specialist centers on the national scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the following case study of family lifecycle, we use family system approach to show the part that pets (dogs) have in every process of maintaining homeostasis and family system development. In this article, you will find clinical analysis of psychological dysfunction in the families both with a pet and without it giving example of how a pet (dog) engaged in the family system could take part in separation process, or stabilize the monadic stage, or represent triangulated system element. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study describes the process of developing the Experiences of Violence in Couple and Family Relationships in University Students Questionnaire, its psychometric properties and the results of the pilot study. The research design used for this study was a nonexperimental, transversal co relational design. The nonrandomized sample consisted of 267 students. The final version of the questionnaire consisted of 41 items and four sub-scales which measured experiences with violence in a relationship as an Aggressor and as a Victim, Observed between the Parents and in the Parent-child relationship as a victim. The total scale and the subscales obtained adequate reliability indexes. On average, the sample reported ten experiences with violence in different contexts. The results of this study contribute data on the prevalence of violence in college students' romantic and family relationships which in turn, provide valuable information for planning prevention and early intervention efforts with this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The specialty of family psychology prepares practitioners to work systemically with individuals, couples, families, and larger social organizations. The specialty is defined, and a rationale is provided for its relevance to professional practice. Key concepts, competencies, and practice dimensions (e.g., assessment, case conceptualization, and intervention) are detailed, as are training and board certification in the specialty. Applications to specific problems and specialty niches are described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the application of family psychology to the primary care setting—in service, education and training, and scholarship. Primary care family psychology integrates family systems with biopsychosocial theory, yielding an approach that is uniquely suited to the generalist demands of primary care. This approach attends especially to the effects of relationships on health and healthcare, using the family as a potential resource to the patient just as the healthcare team is a resource to the clinician. Training opportunities in primary care family psychology are growing. The University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry fellowship is described as an example, with core primary care family psychology training in four different clinical sites: Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Obstetrics/Gynecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relational diagnosis has crucial importance in clinical treatment, but its development and inclusion in systems of classification such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual has been constrained by a number of factors. First, there is little consensus about what relational assessment and/or diagnosis entails. A second obstacle is the innate complexity of relational assessment and diagnosis, which results in a lack of definitive, well-accepted, evidence-based operational definitions of difficulties. Third, empirical testing of relational issues has lagged well behind the development of elegant theory. A fourth significant block to including relational disorders in the DSM is the discomfort engendered in some quarters about labeling social difficulties as disorders. Finally, the political process that is part of the evolution of diagnostic systems poses difficulties in the acceptance of new disorders or dimensions. This comment on the articles in the special section on relational disorders of the Journal of Family Psychology addresses how each of these articles contributes to overcoming these constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family business consultation is an expanding enterprise and constitutes an interesting area of practice for psychologists drawn from industrial/organizational psychology, clinical psychology, and family psychology. This paper provides a clinical case example of a weekend retreat established as the forum for consultation to a family owned business that was experiencing a good deal of dissension between family and non-family management team members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summarizes the major contributions of Harry Stack Sullivan that lie outside his well-known contributions to the interpersonal school of psychoanalysis. Description of Sullivan as a tragic hero who tried to depathologize homosexuality in psychiatry and in Selective Service screening procedures; Features of Sullivan's "personality" in light of his "theorem of reciprocal emotion"; Role as "muse" to pastoral theologians.

Social observers agree that a family is a focus for contemporary concerns. The author suggests that relying on the value dimension of the field of family therapy, which means working with such positive concepts as family resilience, reconciliation can help to defend families against their vulnerability to manipulation. New, positive forms of psychological practice are needed to work at the level of the family. The author also stresses the importance of reflecting on the family theme in psychology and blending ideas from positive psychology and family psychology. As both disciplines are rather new, they can benefit from constructive interaction. Some illustrations concerning the author's work with Russian families and Russian family culture are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]